Giants GM Brian Sabean, with a phone as sharp as his wit, and an uncanny resemblance to George Lucas

So let’s dive in to see what Brian Sabean has up his sleeve besides talented young starting pitching, all-world catcher Buster Posey, and the finest in Motorola technology.

One of the most glaring differences between Sabean and the Jay’s front office is conviction! When the Blue Jays locked up Vernon Wells to his massive seven year deal they stopped believing in their decision half way through the deal, they foolishly traded away their highest paid player in the name of “payroll flexibility.” The Giant’s on the other hand gave Barry Zito a record setting contract and they stood by that commitment. Even when he was arguably their worst starting pitcher they started him in playoff games showing the rest of the league that they weren’t afraid to put their money where there mouth is.

Alex Rios celebrating a record setting strike out!

Even when the Giants did decide to eat a little crow realizing a player may be a lost cause they handled thing’s differently than the Blue Jays. When $60 million dollar outfielder Aaron Rowand hadn’t lived up to expectations the Giants didn’t try and peddle him off in hopes of a meager return and let someone else pay the man the money he had agreed to receive from San Franciso, oh no! The Giants signed him to that contract and they were going to pay him even if he didn’t play as they designated him for assignment and released him in 2011. They Jay’s however had no problem letting another team flex their financial muscles ONCE AGAIN! As they let their own $60 million dollar man go to the White Sox for absolutely nothing AND let them pay all the money on his contract, is this how you treat a player that set a club record for strikeouts in a single game with 5 (twice)??

Another obvious difference between a winning club and the forever fourth place Blue Jays is in their approach to the draft. While Alex Anthopoulos was focused on “acquiring” extra draft picks by doing silly things like trading for arbitration eligible players and signing short term deals to game the compensation system the Giants had different ideas. Overpay for Type-A free agents coming off outlier years so that they can give their draft picks to other teams. Unfortunately there were a few years where the Giants finished in the bottom 15 so they were forced to keep their first round draft picks, so in 2007 they had to shell out big first round bonus money to Madison Bumgarner, and then in 2008 Buster Posey. The Blue Jays on the other hand not only had the bonuses of their first rounders to pay for but all of those other sandwich round and second round picks they had acquired, talk about pricy!

Although when it comes to losing  Type-A players and receiving picks the Jays did manage to avoid big bonus payouts. Take the 2009 draft for example, AJ Burnett signed with the Yankees so the Jays had too make two extra picks, but luckily the Yankees signed two other higher rated Type A’s so the Angels took Mike Trout with the  first round pick they received from the Yankees for losing Mark Teixera. They Jays meanwhile got a nice moderately priced third round pick off the Yanks so wouldn’t have to worry about the expensive Mike Trout. Can you imagine having to pay his signing bonus, or what his arbitration awards will be like?? Plus he would have been taking a way a valuable roster spot from a veteran player, talk about dodging a bullet!!

Another clear competitive edge the Giants’ front office has over the Jays, Brian Sabean looks alot like George Lucas, whereas Alex Anthopoulos looks more like the guy that danced around on camera pretending a stick was a light saber.

So I guess in conclusion Antopoulos and company need to take a long hard look in the mirror and rethink how they do things if they want to have success . Unless there is some way a team can fall ass backwards into young controllable Cy Young winning pitching, overpay for free agents and still keep their first round picks, and then have one of those picks be a generational talent behind the plate that is Major league ready in less than two years… but really what are the odds of that happening?

Rather than sitting on my couch angry, frustrated, and begging for answers, I tuned in to TSN 1050 on my computer. Keith Law of ESPN had just tweeted he’d be coming on the show to talk Blue Jays, and that seemed like a much more enjoyable experience than the anguish the pitching staff was once again putting me through. The host asked Keith a number of questions about the team, including what the hell is wrong with Ricky Romero and whether the Blue Jays should be buyers or sellers at the deadline. What really caught my attention was when he started talking about Yunel Escobar, and who he saw as a viable trade partner. San Francisco Giants. Brandon Belt.

I was floored by the suggestion. I have never really been on the “trade Yunel” bandwagon, despite his dreadful offensive performance this year and the irritatingly constant reminders by Jon Morosi of Fox Sports that the team was looking to move him. He plays the most challenging defensive position in baseball, and in his sixth professional season, he’s already accumulated 18.6 WAR. Should he conclude the season the way ZIPS projects, that number will approach 20. He’s been remarkably consistent with his production as well, with totals of 2.6, 3.7, 4.4, 2.1, 4.3, and 2.6 WAR (projected). With 2 WAR being roughly the average regular, Yunel Escobar has been an above average player every season. Considering some of the awful shortstops the Blue Jays have fielded over the past decade – Royce Clayton, anyone – why would Toronto ever want to move him?

Brandon Belt meets Brandon the baby giraffe at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, CA on Thursday, September 1, 2011. Photo credit: San Francisco Giants

Brandon Belt instantly changes my opinion. The 6-foot-5 Texan was drafted in the fifth round of the 2009 draft, and quickly made short work of the minor leagues. He appeared on Baseball America’s top 100 only once, in 2011, placing 23rd overall after a .352/.455/.620 season. He split the year across three levels (High-A, Double-A, and Triple-A), and in his 136 games he hit 43 doubles, 10 triples, and 23 home runs. Showing surprising wheels for his size, he stole 22 bases. With an extremely disciplined plate approach, he walked 93 times against 99 strikeouts. Those are some crazy good numbers.

Belt bounced between Triple-A and the majors last year before finally settling into San Francisco this season. Settling might be too generous of a term, as he seems to be in and out of manager Bruce Bochy’s doghouse on a regular basis. The Giants have literally received a negative contribution from Brett Pill and Aubrey Huff, yet those two have stolen 156 plate appearances away from Belt at first base. It’s not unlike the Blue Jays decision to play Rajai Davis and Eric Thames over Travis Snider – frustrating for fans of the organization, and puzzling for outsiders looking in. In a Wednesday article by Andrew Baggarly of CSN, Bochy is quoted as saying:

“I think it’s fair to say Brandon is a little lost right now,” Bochy said. “It’s timing and confidence again. I say this so many times: They’ll have their ups and downs, young players, and they have to learn to deal with it.”

Apparently, in Bruce’s world, the easiest way for a young player to deal with confidence issues is to sit on the bench in favor of replacement level players. Sounds a lot like a certain ex-Blue Jays skipper, no?

The Escobar to Giants connection makes plenty of sense when you look at the numbers. At shortstop, San Francisco has sent out Brandon Crawford and Joaquin Arias for a combined 487 plate appearances, with the two totaling only 1.0 WAR. That number isn’t leaps and bounds behind Yunel Escobar to this point, but Escobar has produced 4+ WAR seasons twice in his career – including just last year – something neither Crawford nor Arias ever has the potential for. For a team like San Francisco, who currently rank first in their division and have a dynamite pitching staff, Escobar would be a huge boost both this season and in seasons ahead, thanks to his accommodating club options.

The Belt to the Blue Jays connection makes equal amount of sense if you neglect the Travis Snider fiasco. Alex Anthopolous has made a name for himself by targeting underutilized or underachieving players with big potential, and like Brandon Morrow, Escobar, and Colby Rasmus in years past, Brandon Belt fits the bill perfectly. He’s primarily a first baseman, but has also played a fair amount of left field in the past, so he has some defensive versatility. Adam Lind would be the primary road block for Belt in Toronto, and his current hot streak aside, that shouldn’t be too much of an obstacle. The team also has a built-in replacement for Escobar with Adeiny Hechavarria, and while that exchange would likely result in a decline in production, the potential of an unleashed Brandon Belt should make up for it, and then some.

Keith Law wasn’t specific when mentioning the dynamics of the hypothetical deal, but a 1-for-1 makes a lot of sense to me. Neither team would be inheriting a significant financial burden, and both players have risks attached. Would you trade Yunel Escobar for Brandon Belt? Would you trade Yunel Escobar at all?

After agreeing to a one-year, $1.05 million contract with Fontenot over the offseason to avoid arbitration, the Giants opted to release the 31-year-old in the final week of spring training, where he went 10-for-36 (.278) in 13 games with four doubles. The former Chicago Cub hit just .227 with a .681 OPS in 85 games for San Francisco last season, playing a mixture of shortstop, second base and third base while providing adequate defense on the left side of the infield.

It’s hard to imagine a smart general manager like Alex Anthopoulos remotely considering the idea of going after a guy like Fontenot, even at a rock-bottom cost, so don’t put too much any stock into this tidbit.

- JM

Like what you read and want to stay informed on all updates here at Jays Journal? Follow us on Twitter (@JaysJournal), “Like” our Facebook page, or grab our RSS feed!

Image courtesy of SI.com

One day after the regular season ended, Blue Jays manager John Farrell spoke openly about desiring a quality starter to eat innings, with infielder Mike McCoy even suggesting the same thing in a radio interview on November 3.

One person who would certainly fit that mold is San Francisco Giants right-hander Matt Cain. The question is, though, do the Jays have enough of what the Giants want to get a deal done?

There are many reasons why the Jays would be interested in acquiring a hurler like Cain, who has been one of the best pitchers in baseball since entering the league in 2005.

The first thing that comes to mind with Cain is his consistency. He’s tossed at least 190 innings in each of his six full major league seasons and at least 217 in his last four. The Jays’ 2011 rotation ranked 18th in baseball with 964 2/3 innings pitched, and if you subtract Ricky Romero‘s 225 innings across 32 starts, the remaining Jays starters averaged less than six innings per outing. Cain would solidify any rotation, but being able to rely on him for at least 200 innings in any given season would do wonders for a Jays bullpen that was heavily taxed in 2011.

It’s hard to believe that Cain, having recently turned 27 years old, already has six dominant major league seasons under his belt. Having pitched in two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum‘s shadow since 2007, Cain has quietly strung together dominant campaign after dominant campaign, with his best coming in 2011.

Cain made strides in 2010 by lowering his walk rate and slightly decreasing his hits per nine frames, all while compiling a then-career-best 3.65 FIP in a career-high 223.1 innings. Though he received some consideration for the National League Cy Young Award that year (finishing 12th) the main concern was his home run rate and the fact that AT&T Park helped to somewhat control his 46.6 percent fly ball rate.

In 2011, though, while his conventional stats like a 2.88 ERA and 1.083 WHIP were nice, Cain actually more than halved his home run rate while establishing a new career-high 41.7 ground ball percentage and career-low 38.9 fly ball percentage. There are a few reasons for this, and they imply that Cain will be an even deadlier weapon in the years to come than he has already been.

First, not only did Cain reduce the amount he used his four-seam fastball by almost 10 percent this past season, he worked on throwing it on the outer half of the plate a lot more. The FanGraphs heat map below illustrates Cain’s four-seam fastballs against left-handed hitters in 2011 on the left and 2010 on the right from the catcher’s perspective, meaning the hitter would be on the right. You can see that there’s a lot less of the intense yellow color overall (meaning more pitches thrown in that area) and a significant chunk of it in the 2011 image is eliminated altogether on the inner half of the zone.

With the usage of his four-seamer scaled back, Cain upped the use of his slider and changeup. Using his slider almost exclusively against right-handed hitters and his changeup almost exclusively against lefties, Cain featured a more well-rounded repertoire this past season, regardless of which box the batter was standing in. Though Cain’s numbers against right-handers were still good, his more aggressive approach to lefties in 2011, resulting in a .185/.254/.269 slash line against, is noteworthy.

By continuing to pound the outer half of the plate more often with those off-speed pitches, Cain established a new career-high 33.5 O-Swing%, which measures the percentage of pitches outside the zone that hitters swung at. That’s one of the main reasons for his increased ground ball rate, as he was coaxing more opposing hitters into swinging at bad pitches, resulting in weak contact on the ball. In fact, Cain’s O-Swing% has increased every year that he’s been in the Majors.

Another reason for Cain’s higher ground ball percentage this past season was because he dramatically increased the use of his two-seam fastball, a pitch that he’s seldom used since introducing it to his repertoire.

On the left of the heat map below is an illustration of Cain’s two-seam fastballs versus right-handed batters in 2011 on the left and against left-handed hitters in 2010 on the right. His maps against both lefties and righties were quite similar, so the map versus right-handers was included primarily for greater effect. In this example, the rainbow color palette does a great job of clearly showing the increased use of the pitch with the green and light blue clusters, but also showing how Cain threw the pitch primarily low and away.

With Cain having made all of these adjustments over the course of just one full season, it’s exciting to think about how he’ll improve even further as he continues his career. That being said, though, if he’s sure to be a star for years to come, why on earth would the Giants deal him?

After earning a modest $7.33 million this past season, Cain’s salary more than doubles to $15.33 million in 2012, the final year of the three-year, $27.25 million contract he signed in March 2010. That’s not good news at all to the Giants, who already have roughly $82 million in payroll commitments for next season. That doesn’t include any free agent additions or, more importantly, salaries for their 13 arbitration-eligible players led by Tim Lincecum. MLB Trade Rumors estimates the Giants’ arbitration payments could be around $44 million if everyone returns so, even if the club didn’t sign a single free agent this winter, their 2012 payroll would be in the neighborhood of $125 million. Dealing Cain would give the Giants flexibility to use his $15 million salary to address their offense, perhaps help them bring back free agent Carlos Beltran.

Normally, if a team dealt an ace-caliber pitcher, it would create a gaping hole in their starting rotation. With San Francisco having the luxury of “co-aces” in Lincecum and Cain, not to mention quality starters like Madison Bumgarner, Ryan Vogelsong, and even Barry Zito at times, the Giants’ rotation would be able to absorb the loss of Cain quite well, even with the recent trade of Jonathan Sanchez.

Cain becomes a free agent at the end of the 2012 season, so the Giants’ likelihood of dealing him escalates further if the club is leaning against offering him a long-term contract extension in the next few months (though Brian Sabean probably will). Rather than let him walk for nothing at the end of the season (well, with compensation up in the air with the CBA rules changing), the Giants would be able to acquire at least one MLB-ready, No. 5 starter in any return for Cain to round out their rotation.

Which brings us to what the price would be to acquire the Alabama native, given the factors listed above.

When the Rays shipped out Matt Garza to the Cubs last year, they received an impressive haul of five quality players, though Chicago owned three years of control on the right-hander. When the Indians acquired Ubaldo Jimenez this past season, they shipped out a nice package of four players, but control the former Rockies ace until at least the end of 2013. A better trade to compare a Cain acquisition to would be when the Phillies acquired Roy Oswalt at the 2010 trade deadline.

The Phillies shipped out J.A. Happ, Anthony Gose, and Jonathan Villar that year, with the Astros eventually flipping Gose for Brett Wallace as we all know. Happ had finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in 2009, while Gose was ranked the Phillies’ sixth-best prospect at the time and Villar 22nd. Happ was a big league No. 3 or 4 starter, Gose was a raw prospect in Hi-A, and Villar was a well-regarded shortstop one level lower than Gose. The Phillies, however, received one-and-a-half seasons of Oswalt, as well as $11 million from the Astros to help offset his $16 million salary the following year.

Since the main motivator for the Giants to move Cain would be to free up cash to spend in other places, it’s likely that the Jays would just foot the entire $15 million bill on Cain next season in any deal. That, combined with the fact the Jays would be guaranteed just one year from Cain, would definitely affect the kind package the Giants would receive from Toronto. Even still, using the Oswalt deal as a rough comparison, the Jays would have to send somewhere in the neighborhood of three solid players in order to pry Cain away from the Bay Area.

Outside of Eric Surkamp, the Giants lack starting pitching depth; an area that the Jays are blessed to be abundant in. Even though the Giants’ most pressing need this offseason is upgrading offensively, they shipped out top pitching prospect Zack Wheeler to acquire Beltran a few months ago, so surely a key component of any Cain trade would be one of the Jays’ top pitching prospects. Without mentioning one specific name, guys that would fit that mold would be Deck McGuire, Noah Syndergaard, and Asher Wojciechowski, among many others, with someone like McGuire being a lot closer to the Majors.

While the Giants are almost guaranteed to improve offensively next season with the returns of Buster Posey and Freddy Sanchez, along with new addition Melky Cabrera, they could still upgrade at other positions. One clear position would be right field, as the club could certainly upgrade over Nate Schierholtz. The Jays conveniently have an offensive juggernaut in right field in Jose Bautista, but also another option in Eric Thames assuming Bautista is untouchable. With top outfield prospect Gary Brown being a center fielder and the fact they shipped Thomas Neal to Cleveland for Orlando Cabrera in July, though, the Giants could look to acquire another outfield prospect in case they want to give Francisco Peguero more time at Double-A. In that case, someone like a Moises Sierra or Michael Crouse-type could be of interest to San Francisco.

There’s also the outside thinking that the Giants could go after a first baseman — no, not Adam Lind. While it’s virtually guaranteed that top prospect Brandon Belt will assume everyday first base duties after Aubrey Huff‘s contract comes off the books after 2012, the Giants could entertain the thought of a first baseman if Belt continued to play in left field. The Jays, unfortunately, lack any premium first base prospects, but they do have a Major League ready one that had an outstanding Triple-A season in David Cooper, but I’m really just spit-balling here.

Lastly, the final component of any package for Cain would be a legitimate fifth starter that the Giants could plug into their rotation right away next season. Someone on the Jays’ roster like Brett Cecil, Jesse Litsch, or Carlos Villanueva would fit that mold, but their trade values aren’t exactly elite. There’s also the scenario where the Jays work out a contract extension with Cain prior to the trade, similar to when the Mets acquired Johan Santana in January 2008. This would, obviously, alter the package significantly and likely see the Jays include an extra player while upgrading the quality of the other three involved.

I won’t put together an exact package of players for what it could take to acquire Cain, though, since it results in an uproar from either side of the trade, usually without any justification either. I have, however, included some of the Giants’ needs along with certain players that the Jays could include, so have at it in the comments below to put together what you’d think it would take to acquire a pitcher of Cain’s caliber.

-JM

Like what you read and want to stay informed on all updates here at Jays Journal? Follow us on Twitter (@JaysJournal), “Like” our Facebook page, or grab our RSS feed!